A rebel without a clue.

Well apart from a very cold return to Wetherby: the temperature not the people (they're always frosty), it was a pleasant Saturday hereabouts. Lola and I had a lovely hour and a half clowning about and swimming down on the Ings and Scaur Bank. After a second walk, and before dinner, I popped to Wetherby Brew Co but it was so chilly that I had a glass of cider then returned for a quiet night in. Mum went to the Jazz night in Boston Spa and was gone around 7:30pm and, I guess, I was asleep by eight? I didn't hear anything until I awoke for a pee at dawn. Then I went back to sleep until 5am(6am Spanish time). Come the school holidays I've Archie to house and dog sit for 36 days (the confirmed the dates) as Iskara and David head off to Bulgaria for the entire school holidays... And I can't blame them as the are such busy people: flying all around non-stop with two young-uns and working working working. They're quite well of physically, but I couldn't manage even a f...

This morning, having read Down and Out in Paris and London (a slightly conceited memoir), I feel that Leeds in 2022 resounds to a similar beat. At 7am the only folks about are those who clean up from the night before and those who linger in doorways alive or dead: who knows. The litter of fast food containers, dropped food, paper cups: things blowing on the breeze down Eastgate. Wrappers dropped and forgotten as these bodies slumbers, post binge, in doorways half covered and beyond redemption. It's a town which only just hangs on. Without the universities making their six pence worth the town would be as dead as is possible: none of the structures surrounding the city would exist and those areas would appear as decrepit as I see walking through LS7 to venture over the Inner Ring Road flyover to Wade Lane: it wouldn't be dissimilar to Mansfield? On the verges nature keeps reclaiming as much as it is able. The rats and mice, pigeons and gulls do very well on our ledger of refuse...

Back through the baptismal font which is Leeds on a Friday evening. The pigs feasting on unreal truffles in the barren woods. A trial to get any positive response from people so deep in their trough. As I got back to the flat around 11, the bus at 9 didn't appear at the airport so I shared a taxi to Leeds Station with Victoria heading to York. Walking direct to Lovell Park, blinkers on, keeping out of the path of the brutish hordes swelling the greasy pavements where eyes glimmer malevolent. It's six am, I am back in West Yorkshire. It's time to prepare my face for the faces I meet.

Went to the promenade and I am left wondering how many ice cream, souvenir, discount shoe and restaurants (where someone stands forcing you in) there ever needs to be? Hundreds. In a universe as amazing and as complicated as this humanity really is so simple: give him a lolly and he'll be so so happy. Truthfully, I found myself walking at that promenading speed and shouted at myself. Leaving the pointlessness I crossed over the Ramblas and park which separates Cambrils from L'Horta de Santa Maria. Much like a warning of Dragons: there be Germans beyond the dross of commerciality. So I sat down for a beer - pitiful Estrella Damm (it's Alsatian you know) - and touched base with Nuremberger, Hamburger, and his hund(Nina), then working my way back towards this Fonda I crossed back into Nanaland, but where the locals hung out: Passeig de Francesc Marciá and ate a €5 artisanal pizza(minus the cheese) and a final beer. It's another day. I've located a café next to where I ...

Another half day waiting to sleep and then move along. The afternoons are killers. And I was almost exterminated by the gastrointestinal restaurant next door to the Fonda: €30 for an Entrecot. As I'd paid €14 a few days back for the same item I kept looking around Cambrils. A very nondescript establishment Bar Eixample for a grilled Sea Bass. Reminiscent of the one I grilled back at Pucelli's in Padstow: possibly the least Italian of all the various mock Italian restaurants in that mockery of a Cornish fishing village... The chef was Armenian and he advised me where to get good Lavash: if only there was Armenian food here? But Catalonia isn't England with it's unlimited culinary affair? The Sea Bass wasn't completely fresh. Do I walk because I am bored? The same question could be asked of every narcissistic act I am aware of or oblivious of... From awakening until returning to slumber there is a great nothing to be filled. Of course it is too warm this afternoon to ...

So I hitched, at the junction I was walking towards a few days ago from L'Ampolla (on the first scorching afternoon of this heatwave), to catch the train back to Cambrils to eat a hearty breakfast. Whenever I go in a car, after a long walk, the wonder of the distances we go in such short a time... We're in such a hurry. In the blink of an eye I am on the platform in L'Ampolla with a café Largo. *** Back where this chaotic few days began - breakfast of champions at Sol y Sombra . Traveling by train... In thirty minutes what took four days is over. On the platform I just met a wonderful woman from around Gdansk (Anya) who was graceful enough to spend that time with me and also in the carriage: the journey was over too quickly. For a few moments I was not so lonely as I was on the Camino del Ebro - as the sun was cutting me down. She was visiting a 'friend' (with benefits?) and was heading to Barcelona for a the day. Time for a second bite of the cherry here on the pla...

30 kilometres by 1300. That's too much without any shade, for the last 10, back alongside the Canal. There is no more tedious Camí...but I am back in the Mercat Municipal to compensate with Boquerones Fritas, vino and pan. Six hours of this life. There and back again... It's a wonderful wonderful life... This morning I thought of going to La Rapita on the morrow... But the best breakfast I had so far was in Cambrils... *** I am lonely. No amount of meaning hidden beneath words can cover up this truth. There is nothing and no one (but God, the universe and everything) that helps here. After another pointless walk on my own, sweating and swearing, starring at the horizon and wondering why this activity and what do I do this for all I want now is to touch down in a place I feel closer to: home... Back northwards in the morning... *** Glenn suggested that if nothing presents itself as a solution to sleep on it. I slept on it, but I still am not sure which direction to head. The fur...